Now that Mitt Romney is the presumptive Republican nominee for president, the left is increasing its attacks on his Mormon religion, hoping to distract voters into focusing on perceived negatives about Mormonism. The latest attack is shrewdly done. Instead of directly attacking Mormonism, which could look bad, the left is claiming that Mormonism is really socialist.

Last month, the far left website Salon ran an article entitled, When Mormons Were Socialists. It relied completely upon a deliberate misinterpretation of a few verses in the Book of Mormon. The author claimed that Mormon doctrine about events in the first century A.D. advocated for socialism. He declared that in the Third Book of Nephi, God punished a city because the government disregarded the sick and poor. Tellingly, the Salon article did not indicate where in the Book of Mormon the verses it relies upon are located, because they do not exist. At no time did the Nephite government ever give even a tiny amount of assistance to the poor.

The Book of Mormon is heavily critical of excessive government taxation. Wicked King Noah was criticized for taxing his people mercilessly to fund his extravagant building plan. Like the Bible, which Mormons follow, the Book of Mormon teaches the principle of asking others  not the government  to help the poor.

The Third Book of Nephi is about a city that was punished by God for greed, immorality and turning away from God. It is similar to Bible stories about God punishing the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and the king of Babylon.

The Bible and the Third Book of Nephi both criticize the wealthy for their arrogance. Chapter 6, verses 12 & 15 of the Third Book of Nephi, state:

There began to be some disputings among the people; and some were lifted up unto pride and boastings because of their exceedingly great riches, yea, even unto great persecutions ..Satan had great power, unto the stirring up of the people to do all manner of iniquity, and to the puffing them up with pride, tempting them to seek for power, and authority, and riches, and the vain things of the world.

Similarly, the Bible rails against the greedy rich in James 5:1-4:

1 And a final word to you arrogant rich: Take some lessons in lament. You'll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you. 2 Your money is corrupt and your fine clothes stink. 3 Your greedy luxuries are a cancer in your gut, destroying your life from within. You thought you were piling up wealth. What you've piled up is judgment. 4 All the workers you've exploited and cheated cry out for judgment. The groans of the workers you used and abused are a roar in the ears of the Master Avenger.

Another claim made by the Salon author is that the Third Book of Nephi condemned corporate greed and advocated for the Occupy movement. God had called Samuel to essentially Occupy Zarahemla, to stand up and speak out against corporate greed and wealth accumulation, he wrote. Yet contrary to his assertion, there were no corporations in 6 B.C. Samuel was merely instructed to denounce greed and selfishness, which the Bible has always condemned. This has nothing in common with the Occupy movement, which seeks to use the government to redistribute wealth. This is the same kind of accusation the left makes about mainstream Christianity, claiming Jesus occupied the Temple.

The communitarian living of Mormons in the 1800s is held up as more evidence that Mormons used to advocate for socialism. However, communal living is not socialism; it is voluntary agreements among private parties. A quote by Brigham Young stating that the streams and timber belong to the people and are not for private ownership is also offered as evidence of socialism. This is not accurate, since most capitalist countries, including the United States, treat rivers and most timber forests as federal or state property.

This latest attack is just a variation on the lefts claim that the Bible and Jesus advocated for socialism. If Mormons are socialists, then evangelicals are too. It is odd the left is suddenly so interested in Mormonism now. Harry Reid, a Mormon Democrat, has been the Senate Majority leader since 2007. Mo Udall, also a Mormon Democrat, ran for President against Jimmy Carter in 1976. The left has never had a problem with their Mormonism.

Who gives a sh about the Mormon religion? It just irrelevant to Romneys douchbagery.

For the benefit of the theological illiterate here at FR, Romney's Mormon faith informs his politics. It is not irrelevant.

The Mormon faith is a convoluted form of humanism. There is no recognition of absolute truth in the Mormon faith. It is all predicated on spiritual ascension to godhood, a distinctly atavistic concept.

God is merely a higher form of human evolution in the Mormon view. And, as we should understand by now ALL humanism leads to socialism.

51
posted on 05/09/2012 7:07:58 AM PDT
by Louis Foxwell
(The day liberals grow up is the day tyranny ends.)

A google search for communism in Utah? Come on. Please post something substantive about how Mormon government leads to socialism. For example, show statistics that more people in Utah go on the dole than elsewhere, or unions have more power in Utah or something else concrete and relevant.

I have the same question for you and everyone else. How has Mormonism contributed to the growth of socialism. How has Mormonism benefited socialists or communists? I am looking for concrete answers not theory.

I fail to see the connection between a criminal organization of perverts and a voluntary arrangement by like-thinking individuals, whose activities affect only themselves. The Amish, for example, choose that lifestyle. But they don't try to force it upon others.

54
posted on 05/09/2012 7:15:24 AM PDT
by JimRed
(Excising a cancer before it kills us waters the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS, NOW AND FOREVER!)

This kind of information is fairly easy to come by, since the State of Utah is over 2/3rds Mormon and certain counties there and in southeastern Idaho are over 90% Mormon. Just go to Dave Leip's election atlas and look at two heavily Mormon counties, Madison County, Idaho and Utah County, Utah. These are homes of two large Mormon run universities (another demographic that went over 2-1 for Obama) where the Kenyan couldn't even manage to hoodwink 1 in 5 voters.

The rank and file have the most conservative voting habits in America, even without even filtering out those who do not attend church regularly.

By contrast, if you poll only the church attending Evangelicals, you still get around 30% of them voting Democrat. I would wager that most of that 30% shares the same visceral hatred of Mormons as the moonbats which infest this forum.

The only thing which makes voting for a RINO like Romney palatable is knowing how it is going to p*ss off these bigoted lowlifers.

58
posted on 05/09/2012 7:37:34 AM PDT
by Vigilanteman
(Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)

If you mean I had a hand in this. Well, maybe you have a point. The first vote I was old enough to cast was for Bush ver1.0 right after Regan. And since then I have voted for every GOP candidate they threw at me.

But that’s over. It is apparent to me now that voting for increasingly leftist DH’s in the GOP is a LOSING strategy. More than that, its a SUICIDAL strategy.

I used to think my enemy was the democrats, just because they were democrats and some nebulous stuff about being hippy idiots. My experience and knowledge has expanded and transformed over the years to understand that forced collectivism (socialism, communism, authoritarian capitalism, etc) is the enemy. WHEREVER IT EXISTS.

So what to do about it? Who to fight? Well... I guess, Like any army, we need a base of operation free form the molestation of enemy and a leadership structure free from the influence of the enemy. Once we have that we can then begin to launch an offensive against the enemy everywhere else according to an aggressive strategy that has the eventual extermination of the collectivist -isms in mind.

Well, guess what? We have yet to achieve the first F’ing step of that. We still do not have a party and party leadership free of the molestation and influence of the socialists.

So...

Primary target = Socialists within leadership positions in the political party we need as a base of operation. Once that party is purged we can move on to phase 2.

Secondary targets = all other socialists that infest our ranks and throw grenades in our tents while we sleep.

Im making up for what part (unintentional as it may have been) I played in helping the socialists take control of the GOP. I do not intend to quit nor do I intend to compromise.

So to you, obeying Christ by avoiding and exposing purveyors of a false Christ makes one a “bigoted lowlifer?” Could it be that the bigotry actually lies elsewhere? It is a condition of my faith that I obey Christ. I am simply not allowed, no matter how I feel, to voluntarily empower, politically, spiritually, or otherwise, anyone making a direct claim to their own deity. To do so would implicate me in the sin of idolatry, a brazen rejection of the first of the Ten Commandments.

Remember, Christians have been here before. We will not bend or bow to human hubris, regardless of whether it takes a secular or religious form. We would not submit to Caesar. We will not submit to the Marxists. You are free to do as you like. I see no reason, however, to diminish your fellow warriors for conservatism simply because their religion obliges their conscience to not vote for fake deities. It is not logical. We can continue to fight in common cause despite this difference in perspective, can we not? Or are we as subject to the privations of group-think as our opponents on the left?

He declared that in the Third Book of Nephi, God punished a city because the government disregarded the sick and poor. Tellingly, the Salon article did not indicate where in the Book of Mormon the verses it relies upon are located, because they do not exist.

Get back to me when you can find proof that the city existed.

66
posted on 05/09/2012 8:38:04 AM PDT
by freedomlover
(Make sure you're in love - before you move in the heavy stuff)

Have you looked at the politics of Mormons in elected office? Note especially Harry Reid and Mitt Romney. Their influence has been substantially toward socialist government. A better quest would be for a Mormon politician who is not socialist.

67
posted on 05/09/2012 8:38:13 AM PDT
by Louis Foxwell
(The day liberals grow up is the day tyranny ends.)

[ The communitarian living of Mormons in the 1800s is held up as more evidence that Mormons used to advocate for socialism. However, communal living is not socialism; it is voluntary agreements among private parties.
Game, set, match right there.

It becomes Socialism when gummint gets involved.

The Pilgrims tried a form of communal living for their first few years. They quickly learned it bred discord among those who didn’t think the fruits of their labors should be shared with those who didn’t necessarily have to do any work in order to receive a share of the common store. ]

When Communitarian Living becomes MANDATORY it becomes Tyranny.

Nothing is stopping ANYONE in this country from getting together and living in a communitarian mess. It is just like Vegans, they think because that they are miserable, everyone else must be forced to be miserable too.

I’m confused. What is the “it” to which you so ambiguously refer? What of what YOU said did I say was true? I went back and reread your original post, and saw there what I saw the first time, that you were suggesting that freepers were in some way a source used by Salon to criticize Mormonism as a means of distracting voters. That thought, as you presented it, is BS. What IS true is that Salon et al would have no shortage of their own sources for criticizing Mormonism or religion of any kind. I seriously doubt they use any of us as reference sources. I do agree they see this as a valuable tactic to wage war on Romney and the GOP, but the fault for that lies at the feet of the GOP-e and the mind-numbed part-time GOP voters who gave us Romney without thinking through that vulnerability.

To be as up front as possible, I was probably reacting more to your innuendo concerning either the effect or the intent of your fellow freepers who can’t get on the Romney Train. You seemed to me to be suggesting a confluence of purpose between freepers acting out of a pure desire to obey God and corrupt Marxists (redundant, I know) acting to secure an election by psychological subterfuge. That association is repugnant, and it is false. Honoring God’s law is never bad for the Republic and never good for the Marxists. Period. If you did not intend that association, please accept my apologies in advance. If you did, I hope I have clarified my position that it is among the most unwholesome and unhealthy BS ever served up on these forums. And that’s saying a lot.

Well Springfield, you might just want to question the motives and dictates of who ever defined Mormons for you. Like Democrats, it’s not that their stupid, it’s just that so much they know just isn’t true.

73
posted on 05/09/2012 9:04:57 AM PDT
by Steamburg
(The contents of your wallet is the only language Politicians understand.)

Oh, you mean the Mormons I have known personally and who have interacted with my family personally in extraordinarily creepy ways, directly related to their belief in self-deification? Or perhaps you mean the Book of Mormon as compared to the Bible, both of which I have used as direct sources without any political intervention from right OR left? Or perhaps you mean the later “prophets” of Mormonism who have kindly left us their words in print to ponder and compare with Scripture? Gee, not one Democrat in that list. How’d that happen? You wouldn’t be operating from a misconstructed caricature yourself, would you? Hmmm...

So what to do about it? Who to fight? Well... I guess, Like any army, we need a base of operation free form the molestation of enemy and a leadership structure free from the influence of the enemy. Once we have that we can then begin to launch an offensive against the enemy everywhere else according to an aggressive strategy that has the eventual extermination of the collectivist -isms in mind.

how do you intend to make the above happen by sitting on the sidelines? As in, what part are you playing in making the above happen, or are you (as the John Mayer song goes) [simply] waiting for the world to change.

Wanting to exterminate people because they disagree with your particular brand of theology is neither American nor Christian.

Ditto for wanting to stop short of extermination and settling for driving them out of the country, marginalization, etc.

You alone determine which brand you subscribe to and God will be your judge. As for me, I will welcome anyone who will join me in fighting Satanic Marxists. No matter whether they call themselves Mormons, Jews, Evangelicals, Catholics, Buddhists or Muslims.

77
posted on 05/09/2012 10:19:35 AM PDT
by Vigilanteman
(Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)

I have read a lot of these Mormonism debate threads, and I honestly don’t recall anyone talking about exterminations or expulsions. If you could kindly point me to a post or two that confirms this, I would appreciate it. Or if thats not what you were saying, a clarification would be nice.

As for me, such a thought never entered my head, though both religious and secular history is full of examples of such things. But I haven’t run across such talk here. My gain, I guess.

But that is only part of what needs to be done. While it is imperative that we support strong anti-socialists it is equally important to eliminate the socialists within our party.

That means getting involved in every level of the local / state / national GOP and running against or forcing out the socialist garbage within the party leadership and membership. It also means turning your back on the socialist pricks they try to force feed us as candidates.

If they cant get their chosen candidates elected then their stature and relevancy declines. As we get more of OUR people elected OUR relevancy and power increases within the party. This isn’t rocket science.

Voting for the socialists the GOP increasingly toss our way is not going to make anything better. It makes it worse. Stop being part of the problem.

Mormonism is a religion of works, not grace. The only way you get to be a God of you own planet is by fiddling works, as Mitt has shown with Romneycare. I have been in many debates been called a bigot for pointing out that you can’t separate a man’s religion from his political beliefs.

Your vicious, vile hatred launched against the Mormon church and it's members is intolerable.

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses

, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

84
posted on 05/09/2012 12:10:09 PM PDT
by Elsie
(Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)

I am shocked SHOCKED that there is communism in Utah. Now, my question is: is there more communism or socialism in Utah than other states (Calif excepted)? Does Mormonism in various ways promote socialism more than secularism? What are those ways? The answers to questions like that are important. Obviously Romney is a liberal and we have to decide whether it is worth having a RINO to get rid of Obama. But it may be that Romney is not a typical Mormon. Anything specific that you can post will help people decide.

Your erratic postings are sadly humorous. You remind me of an old gasthaus owner in a little village near where I was stationed in W. Germany. Herr Loeber saw a Jew under every table or floorboard. He hated them and constantly claimed he was right and they were wrong. His place had great food but I could not stand his bigotry.

What is it that drives such thoughts? I think it’s EGO, because it surely ain’t science.

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